Read Demon Gate: Beyond the 9th Circle: The Rapture Was Just The Beginning. for Free Online Page A

Getting out,
Spencer approached one of the demon corpses.
“No way.” Spencer exclaimed. “Are you
seeing this?”
“I’ll be damned, they can be killed. But
how?” Louis wondered, approaching the
motionless body.
A soft moan carried on the wind. “Y’all
hear that?” Lester asked.
“Hear what?” Gretchen asked.
“Sounds like someone moaned.” Lester
explained as he listened for more to help pinpoint
a location, but he didn’t need it; a hand in the air
signaled the cavalry to come in.
“What the hell happened here?” Spencer
asked as he knelt at the man's side.
“We kicked their asses back to Hell.” The
man replied weakly, a significant portion of
blood leaking through the man’s shredded shirt
indicated a fatal wound.
“How did you kill them?” Spencer
demanded.
“The ‘queen’. Every hive has one.” The
man choked out, “You need to find and kill the
queen.” The man explained before exhaling his
last breath.
Spencer stood; everybody knew what he
was thinking. “You’re nuts, we should make for
Arizona.” Lester suggested.
“These guys killed an entire ‘hive’ of
demons. We should get as much information as
we can. Maybe we can find other survivors and
mount a counterattack.” Spencer offered.
“Louis, I know you’re with me.” Lester
said. His fear was showing for the first time in
days.
“No, this city boy’s right. We should find
others, figure out how to find the queen and find
out how they killed it.” Louis said. “If we
actually find the queen here, we might be able to
see how they did it. That would help as I really
doubt anyone else is left alive here.”
“Then let’s spread out and find it.”
Spencer ordered.
Everybody started looking. Spencer was
worried about Gretchen. How would she handle
death on this scale? They continued searching for
another twenty minutes before Lester found a
demon corpse that was significantly different
from the others.
“I done found it. It ain’t got no head, but I
done found it.” Lester cheered triumphantly.
Spencer, Louis and Gretchen came to
investigate the corpse. Spencer found a body that
had suffered numerous gunshot wounds and most
severe of all, decapitation.
“Wow, she didn’t go down easy.”
Spencer observed, then he noticed something in
the queen’s hand. It was a kind of sword. The
blade was three feet long and the edge of was
smooth and slightly curved. The sword itself
exuded darkness which swirled just around the
entire blade.
“You think we should take this with us?”
Spencer asked, staring at the blade.
“I don’t know, that there’s bad hoodoo.”
Lester objected.
“I think we should take it,” Spencer said
before reaching down and prying the demonic
queen’s hand open to release the sword. Then he
noticed a strap across the queen’s chest and
turned the headless body over to find a sort of
scabbard. He removed the scabbard and placed
the sword inside.
“Check for other weapons and supplies,
then meet back at the cars in ten minutes.”
Spencer said. Louis and Lester nodded before
heading off in one direction while Gretchen and
Spencer went in another.
Spencer strapped the sword to his back
and headed out away from the cars where a
Humvee was parked. Spencer figured taking the
vehicle with them would give them one more
weapon; inspecting under the hood he found that
the engine seemed to be in working order. He
jumped into the driver’s seat and tried to start the
engine. It whined as Spencer turned the key in
the ignition and refused to start so Spencer
looked at the fuel gauge; it was empty.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Spencer
mourned. Then he got out and realized why there
was no longer sufficient fuel; there was a gash in
the vehicle just below the window, and it looked
deep. On the ground some fluid had spilled out.
From the smell Spencer realized it was gasoline.
The fuel line or gas tank must have been
breached during the fighting. It was no use trying
to find out who had done it or if they